Further Evidence on the Determinants of Secured versus Unsecured Loans

Using a unique data set collected from financial statements of all Singapore listed firms from 1983 to 1991, we provide international evidence on the determinants of the amount of secured loans as a fraction of total secured and unsecured loans. This data set comprises a much wider range of firms than most previous studies. We show that consistent with the agency-cost hypothesis, firms with more growth opportunities use more secured loans. This is in contrast to the opposite result reported in Barclay and Smith (1995b) who measure secured debt as a fraction of total long-term fixed claims. We also find strong support for the hypothesis that smaller firms use more secured loans. In contrast, Leeth and Scott (1989), using survey data on small firms, find an insignificant firm size effect. Finally, we show that the use of secured loans is positively related to asset riskiness and loan size, and is negatively related to asset specificity. Firm quality has no explanatory power.     

Understanding the UK food consumer

Since the publication of quantified dietary guidelines in 198314, interest in food related issues has both increased and diversified. This paper describes changes in these issues and marketing response to these changes. There is, however, a marketing challenge which goes beyond reaction to individual issues and specific crises such as salmonella or listeria. This broader marketing challenge is the general increase in interest in food and in food related issues. This paper asserts that this phenomena itself is the greatest challenge to food marketers and further, that in today's consumer environment, it is a challenge which must be addressed without delay.

There is currently a merging of food and environmental/conservation issues along with the general increase in public awareness and information campaigns relating to “green” issues. This highlights the need for organisations in the food sector to take immediate action to rebuild customer confidence in the industry and in producers and in information produced by them. This problem is a shared one throughout the industry and when addressed will restore a more stable environment for competitive product marketing.

This paper is presented as a demonstration of the importance of the holistic view of research—of looking at the total situation and putting the issues or hypotheses in context of the total situation. It draws on a variety of sources, secondary and primary whilst also taking into account environmental factors such as media coverage and the particular history of the situation such as the distribution of the Villejuif list of food additives in 1986. It is, the paper concludes, important that a market situation is understood and reacted to in a sympathetic way for a marketing strategy to be successful.     

Autopoiesis in Disneyland: reassuring consumers via autopoietic brand management

This paper introduces a new concept of brand management: autopoietic brand management. Autopoiesis is a biological definition of life that stresses the radical autonomy of living systems. Organisational science has developed the concept, emphasising the capacity of autopoietic organisations to adapt spontaneously to external pressures. These facts support the following arguments. First, that the Disney brand is managed as an autopoietic system. The brand has its own operating code, self-defined boundaries, self-replicating ability and pace of operation. This conveys a sense of reassurance to Disney's customers. Further arguments about the brand's role in corporate socialisation and adaptation are developed. These claims focus on the brand's ability to represent the corporation's activity to itself via the self-referencing features of autopoiesis.     

The glory of stories: Using critical incidents to understand service evaluation in the primary healthcare context

This paper reports the results of a research project into the determinants of consumer evaluation of services. The research uses the healthcare context to explore consumer perceptions of the service product dimensions. Using a critical incident technique, a consumer‐derived model of the relationships between core and peripheral aspects of the service is presented. The results indicate that evaluation is a function of both personal and organizational factors which comprise core and peripheral components of the service.     

Multidimensional latent traits of perceived organizational innovation: Differences between Thai and Egyptian employees

A new approach, the multidimensional latent regression (MLR) approach of item response theory, is employed to evaluate the dimensions of individual employee creativity, workplace atmosphere, and workplace innovative activity. Based on the MLR concept, the relationships among the measurement scales of these variables are tested for their unidimensionality versus multidimensionality. Multidimensionality was found. While workplace atmosphere is closely linked to workplace innovative activity, individual employee creativity forms its own dimension but is still positively linked to the other two measures. To achieve an accurate comparison between the two groups of Thai and Egyptian employees who have the same levels of agreement with the scale items, it is necessary to adjust the scores of Egyptian employees downwards.

Information-Based Principles for Rethinking Consumer Protection Policy

In this paper we review the changes in economic theory that have taken place since current consumer protection regimes were first developed in the 1960s and 70s. We draw from this evolution in economic theory the basic principle that information, and the complex ways in which information works both in the marketplace and in regulatory regimes, should form the core of a set of principles for rethinking consumer protection policy. We go on to propose a number of such information-based principles as a guide for the redesign of consumer protection policy to deal with an increasingly global and complex consumer marketplace.     

伦敦金融城胜过华尔街

对于等着下一轮冬季奖金的投资银行家们来说，了解一下猎头公司的一项调查未尝不是个好主意。这项调查显示，在伦敦金融城去年冬季的奖金发放中，获得最大红包的银行家并非来自并购、股票或债券等通常领域，而是像结构性信贷等较为新潮的领域。同时，地区差异也是存在的。在伦敦，从事交易和构建新型信用产品的董事总经理们分别平均赚得160万英镑（合280万美元）和110万英镑，而在纽约，这两个数字分别是120万英镑和100万英镑。